Yet the Mexican half of her heritage is pretty much non-existent the rest of the time. As terrible as LKH's take on an interracial character is and as often as indiscriminately as Anita shrieks 'racist!' (at what are often understandable alternative points of view), we should probably be glad that LKH doesn't do more with Anita's heritage. Especially since I never quite worked out whether the voodoo priestess gene (which apparently came from the 'otherness' of her Mexican parent) was supposed to have come from the native tribes who lived in Mexico before the Spanish showed up or the Spanish people who squashed them. (Neither of which is historically accurate, as we all know.) I'm not actually certain that LKH ever bothered to discover how voodoo came into existence much less how it's practiced or that there are different branches that do things differently. It might be hilarious to see all of that in print but it also might be rage-inducing.
Because no one ever has that combination unless they are mixed ::coughBlackIrishcough::.
I have to admit, I have no idea what Black Irish-ness is. But your point is entirely valid. Everyone knows someone with that coloring who *doesn't* share Anita's "unique" background. And, ugh, yeah the skin thing is gross, especially since she's fetishising her own skin. It makes it so much harder to believe that she just 'happens' not to have banged a guy with more melanin than her. (And that there aren't that many of them in St. Louis of all places and that they all ended up as 'not sexy' were-animals.)
Anita's extreme lack of cultural context would make more sense if she was the product of a third or fourth generation (or even further beyond) interracial mix. Like her grandmother married a white man with a very prosaic family history, her mother married a white man with an equally uninteresting family history, and then Anita. Because at some point, time washes away a line's cultural markers if those cultural markers aren't renewed, either by marriage to another person produced by that culture or by living in that culture. The descendents might *look* predominantly like their grandmother's people but they don't think, act, or share a basic understanding of 'this is the world' with their grandmother or her people. They might, however, eat special noodles or eat certain foods on the holidays or whatever.
She'd probably be floored if you told her that Catherine Zeta-Jones isn't Mexican. I admit, I know Catherine Zeta-Jones isn't Mexican but I don't know what ethnicity she actually is, either. I found out that she married Michael Douglas and that killed my interest in her personal life. I haven't seen her in anything for awhile but I have the impression that she's a good actress and that's about it. (To be fair, I apply this extreme lack of interest to most actor/actress' personal lives. As long as they're good at their craft and not a walking disaster zone, I generally don't want to know. Because what if I have to hate them and that ruins all of their future work in my eyes? *Yes, Mel Gibson, I'm looking at you.*)
no subject
As terrible as LKH's take on an interracial character is and as often as indiscriminately as Anita shrieks 'racist!' (at what are often understandable alternative points of view), we should probably be glad that LKH doesn't do more with Anita's heritage. Especially since I never quite worked out whether the voodoo priestess gene (which apparently came from the 'otherness' of her Mexican parent) was supposed to have come from the native tribes who lived in Mexico before the Spanish showed up or the Spanish people who squashed them. (Neither of which is historically accurate, as we all know.) I'm not actually certain that LKH ever bothered to discover how voodoo came into existence much less how it's practiced or that there are different branches that do things differently. It might be hilarious to see all of that in print but it also might be rage-inducing.
Because no one ever has that combination unless they are mixed ::coughBlackIrishcough::.
I have to admit, I have no idea what Black Irish-ness is. But your point is entirely valid. Everyone knows someone with that coloring who *doesn't* share Anita's "unique" background. And, ugh, yeah the skin thing is gross, especially since she's fetishising her own skin. It makes it so much harder to believe that she just 'happens' not to have banged a guy with more melanin than her. (And that there aren't that many of them in St. Louis of all places and that they all ended up as 'not sexy' were-animals.)
Anita's extreme lack of cultural context would make more sense if she was the product of a third or fourth generation (or even further beyond) interracial mix. Like her grandmother married a white man with a very prosaic family history, her mother married a white man with an equally uninteresting family history, and then Anita. Because at some point, time washes away a line's cultural markers if those cultural markers aren't renewed, either by marriage to another person produced by that culture or by living in that culture. The descendents might *look* predominantly like their grandmother's people but they don't think, act, or share a basic understanding of 'this is the world' with their grandmother or her people. They might, however, eat special noodles or eat certain foods on the holidays or whatever.
She'd probably be floored if you told her that Catherine Zeta-Jones isn't Mexican.
I admit, I know Catherine Zeta-Jones isn't Mexican but I don't know what ethnicity she actually is, either. I found out that she married Michael Douglas and that killed my interest in her personal life. I haven't seen her in anything for awhile but I have the impression that she's a good actress and that's about it. (To be fair, I apply this extreme lack of interest to most actor/actress' personal lives. As long as they're good at their craft and not a walking disaster zone, I generally don't want to know. Because what if I have to hate them and that ruins all of their future work in my eyes? *Yes, Mel Gibson, I'm looking at you.*)